The Best All-in-One Printer

After more than 35 hours of research and testing, we’re convinced that the HP OfficeJet 8720 All-in-One Printer is the best (well, the least frustrating) all-in-one printer for most people. If you need a jack-of-all-trades—and master-of-none—machine for your home office or your family, this model will get the job done. It can print, scan, fax, and copy most regular documents, it runs faster than many inkjets at this price, and it feels sturdier than other AIOs we’ve tested over the years. HP’s interface seems more polished and refined than any other company’s, and that makes installation, everyday use, and even troubleshooting relatively painless. Per-page print costs are lower than those of most competing inkjets, at 1.6¢ per page for black and white and 8.1¢ for color. Though it’s best suited for document printing and scanning, it’s actually decent at printing photos when the need arises, too. This model is as close as you can get to a great, affordable all-arounder.

Last Updated:
One year ago

We’ve updated this guide with all new picks, based on new testing and research. And yes, we are finally recommending a color laser printer.

One year ago:
We’ve completed a new round of testing since our last set of picks became widely unavailable earlier this summer. We’re now confident that the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 will be our new top pick. It’s the successor to our previous pick, and it inherits a lot of what made that model surprisingly pleasant to use. The HP Envy 5540 will be our budget pick, and the HP Laserjet Pro M477fdw will be our premium printer for high-volume needs, such as for a small business. We still think that all printers suck (even the best ones), but we will take this guide off Wait status when we’ve written about our new test results and can explain why these three printers are the best all-in-one options for now.

One year ago:
We’ve noticed that stock levels of the HP Officejet Pro 8620 and HP ENVY 7640 are running low, but both are still available for now. We’ll continue to monitor their availability, and we’ll look to update this guide with new picks if either model disappears completely.

Two years ago:
HP has announced the Officejet Pro 8720, the follow-up to our new pick. Even though that new model is coming out soon, major flaws in all-in-one printers often don’t become obvious until the machine has been on the market for a while, so we won’t consider the 8720 for at least a few months. See our What to look forward to section for our initial thoughts.

Two years ago: The HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One Printer is our new pick for the best all-in-one printer, replacing our previous pick, the Epson WorkForce WF-3620 (an excellent printer that suffers from an unusually high failure rate and insufficient customer service). Though any AIO printer represents a compromise, the HP Officejet Pro 8620 is the best currently available model for most people. This affordable machine can easily and competently handle most printing and scanning jobs for home or home-office purposes, but like any printer, it can be hard to set up and susceptible to networking issues, and it can use a large amount of costly ink.

Two years ago:
We are putting this guide back on Wait status to caution you against getting our previous pick—the Epson WorkForce WF-3620. We’re still working on our next update to this guide, but here’s what we’re going to recommend: The HP OfficeJet Pro 8620 is the best bet for most people, especially if you need a versatile, affordable, and well-constructed printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine at home or in a home office. If you plan to use your all-in-one only occasionally, the HP Envy 7640 is all you’ll need; consider using it with the HP Instant Ink program. For heavier workloads, the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4630 runs off pages faster and for less money than our other picks.

Two years ago:
We’re posting a full update in about a month. Here’s what we’re going to recommend: The HP Officejet 8620 is the best bet for most people who need a versatile, affordable, well-constructed printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine for use at home or in a home office. If you only plan to use your all-in-one occasionally, the HP Envy 7640 is all you’ll need. Consider using it with the HP Instant Ink program. For heavier workloads, the Epson Workforce Pro WF-4630 runs off pages faster and for cheaper than our other picks.

Two years ago:
We’re setting this guide to wait status while we test new possible picks. We don’t yet have a new all in one printer pick, but we can no longer recommend the Epson WF-3620 due to the high failure rate reported by users.

Two years ago: Epson has introduced a new line of printers that don’t use cartridges, and instead rely on mechanical printheads and and store ink in four small tanks that should last for over a year per refill. See more details in the What to Look Forward to section below.

Three years ago:
Epson, the maker of our main pick, has on several occasions shipped printers to customers that don’t work.If you’re uncomfortable ordering the WF-3620 or WF-3640 because of these reports, that’s understandable, so we have an alternative recommendation, the HP Officejet Pro 8620.

Let’s be clear: All printers are disappointing, particularly color all-in-ones. Yes, that statement even includes this HP model and the others in this guide. We’ve written about this topic in the past, and the problem remains today. No printer is free of rough edges, whether they come in the form of paper jams, software glitches, clogged printheads, or flaky Wi-Fi. Even the most popular, highest-rated printers will probably find a way to let you down at some point during their life cycle. But if you find that you absolutely need a color all-in-one for your home or home office, the models we recommend in this guide are the best of a flawed bunch.

This business-class upgrade adds more memory, single-pass duplex scanning, and PDF and Word file printing from a USB stick. Grab it if you need those features, or if the 8720 is out of stock.

Prices can fluctuate, and even newer models sometimes go out of stock. If that happens with the OfficeJet Pro 8720, look to its more business-oriented sibling, the OfficeJet Pro 8730. To the 8720’s already impressive feature set, this model (a $75 upgrade at this writing) adds 256 MB more onboard memory, the ability to print business documents directly from a USB stick, and single-pass duplex scanning and copying. You might not need those features, but if the price is right, they’d be nice to have.

If you don’t print often but insist on a cheap color printer, the Envy 5540 offers excellent print quality, as well as reasonable ink costs if you use HP’s subscription service.

Not looking to spend much on a printer and scanner, but can’t live without color? The HP Envy 5540 is a decent color inkjet for anyone with pared-down needs, offering sharp text output, vibrant photos, and an approachable user interface. Unlike our main pick, this model doesn’t give you an automatic document feeder (ADF), but the flatbed can make decent single-page scans and copies. As with most cheap inkjet printers, the regular cost per page is obscene—5.7¢ for black and white, 17¢ for color, and well over a dollar for large photos. But the Envy 5540 works with HP’s Instant Ink subscription program, which can push print costs down to 6¢ per page (or lower) for color as well as for black and white. If you use this model mostly to print color, that works out to be an excellent deal.

This color laser all-in-one is better for people with high-volume needs, or those who just don’t want to deal with all the frustrations of an inkjet.

Some people need more firepower, or just don’t want to put up with the frustrations of an inkjet, and they’re willing to pay for a big step up. If that’s you, a color laser AIO such as the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw is an ideal upgrade. It’s much faster and more flexible than its OfficeJet cousins, and it offers more robust admin settings for use in an office environment. We don’t think it’s necessary for most homes, or even home offices. But if you run a small business with modest printing and paper-handling needs, or if you’ve grown exasperated with your inkjet AIO’s failings, it should hit the sweet spot.

Table of contents

Why you should trust us

We’ve been testing all-in-ones since 2012, spending hundreds of hours since then researching and testing dozens of models. I’m new to the topic, but the editor on this guide spent a couple of years on this beat here at The Wirecutter. We’ve done a lot of legwork to figure out what people want in a printer.

We surveyed our readers to ask what kind of documents they usually print (black and white, mostly, but tons of respondents said they still wanted to be able to print in color), how important secondary functions like scanning and copying are (very), and whether people care about faxing anymore (not many do). We also checked out market research, including the results of a survey from HP. The big takeaway there? The vast majority of adults (80 percent) own a printer of some kind, and younger shoppers value wireless and mobile connectivity. Duly noted.

We’ve updated this guide to reflect the latest releases as of August 2016, and due to popular (or maybe just loud) demand, we’ve finally added a color laser AIO pick to the guide. In total, we spent around 35 hours on research and testing, closely evaluating about 30 models and putting five of them through testing before arriving at our recommendations.

Who should get this

After all these years, all-in-one printers are still a mess.

There’s really no nice way to put this: After all these years, all-in-one printers are still a mess. Most models eat ink for breakfast (and laser toner isn’t much cheaper). Hardware and software glitches abound. Wi-Fi connections are flakier than a croissant. And good luck if you ever need help from customer service.

But with that said, it’s easy to understand why AIOs remain popular. For anyone who prints or copies 100 to 500 pages a month (give or take), scans documents from time to time, and maybe even needs to fax on occasion, a midrange inkjet AIO makes a lot of sense. (Laser AIOs at this price print only in black and white, which is a dealbreaker for many people.) Yeah, it’s a jack of all trades and master of none, but it also represents the most economical way to address all those needs.

To figure out if an AIO is right for you, ask yourself a few questions. Do you handle your own bookkeeping? Great. Do you often find yourself printing schedules or rosters for, say, a book club or a T-ball team? Excellent. Do you work from home? Yep, still in the ballpark, as long as you’re not running a paper-heavy business.

But if you’re seeking a printer for a dedicated office—say, you print and copy several hundred or even thousands of pages each month, scanning important legal documents as a regular part of your job—you need to consider an enterprise-grade printer, something we don’t cover in this guide.

If you print and scan only on rare occasions, consider using a local copy shop or campus print services. But if you absolutely need to have your own machine, laser printers are almost always a better choice for irregular usage because they can sit unused for weeks or months on end with no downside. (Our upgrade pick is a color laser AIO, and we also recommend some monochrome laser machines in another one of our guides.) Inkjets, on the other hand, begin to dry out and clog if they sit idle for a week or more (give or take) between uses, and can waste several pages’ worth of ink in the process of cleaning themselves out. That drives up your cost per page.

And if print and scan quality is of the utmost importance to you, an AIO probably won’t cut it. We have recommendations for photo printers and document scanners if you need better performance for those specific tasks.

How we picked

We set out to find the Goldilocks of AIOs, a printer with all the essential features for home-office use that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. It’s got to be juuuust right. The ideal AIO is likely an inkjet printer (laser AIOs are too expensive), and typically features an automatic document feeder (ADF) in addition to a flatbed scanner, as well as two-sided (duplex) printing. The really good models can also do automatic duplex scanning and copying through the ADF, and should have a secondary or bypass paper tray so that you can use different paper types or sizes. All current models should support the latest mobile-printing standards, including Google Cloud Print and Apple AirPrint. These are printers that can work equally well for family use (school projects, legal forms, event tickets) or light use in a home office. And these models should be able to handle a workload of 100 to 1,000 pages per month, based on what we know about their durability.

We set out to find the Goldilocks of AIOs, a printer with all the essential features for home-office use that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. It’s got to be juuuust right.

We started with a pool of about 30 all-in-one candidates from the major manufacturers: Brother, Canon, Epson, and HP. We also had a price cap of $500—higher than we expect most people would prefer to pay, but we wanted to cast a wide net. Then we narrowed in on features: No automatic document feeder? You’re out. No duplex printing? No way. A print cost higher than 2¢ per page for black and white? We can do better. After applying those criteria, we got down to 11 eligible models.

Next we looked at prices, considering what you need to spend to get the best features, and at what point spending more money stops adding value for the average buyer. We found that somewhere between $150 and $200 is the sweet spot, and that helped us narrow the field to just seven machines. (Printers are known to go on sale at deep, deep discounts, so in the months after we publish this guide, the number of AIOs that meet this criterion will shift.)

From there, we consulted expert reviews, examined customer ratings, and relied on the experience we’ve gathered through previous rounds of testing to arrive at the two most promising candidates: the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 (the successor to our previous pick) and the Brother MFC-J985DW.

How we tested

Most printers print just fine—it’s getting the job to start that’s the hard part.

We used these printers under multiple conditions. We installed drivers on both Windows 10 and Mac OS X computers, and we printed from a Nexus 5X Android phone and an iPhone 5. Since most people seem to print and scan over Wi-Fi these days, that’s how we did most of our testing.

We were especially critical of installer packages, print/scan software, connectivity issues, and mobile apps. We also spent hours fiddling with onboard menu systems to identify pain points that may emerge through extended use. After all, most printers print just fine—it’s getting the job to start that’s the hard part.

But there are differences in print and scan quality, of course, so we printed a variety of monochrome text and colorful graphic documents to judge print quality and speed. We also tested the inkjets for photo quality, and we judged each unit’s ability to scan text and images.

We tested paper handling by running large print, scan, and copy jobs over and over again, to ensure that the printers could consistently run jam-free.

As we used the printers, we kept our eyes on other stuff that we didn’t explicitly test. For instance, we took note of build quality, print and scan noise, and warmup times. We checked how easy it was to apply firmware updates. We listened for any annoying noises in the night. In short, we figured out what it’s like to live with these printers.

Our pick

The HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 is a sturdy, reasonably priced printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine rolled into one, with a smoother user experience than similar models offer.

With worry-free installation, great software, cheap ink, and sharp results, this printer is easily the least annoying all-in-one you can buy. When it comes to printers, that’s really saying something.

The HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 All-in-One Printer does most every home or work-from-home task you could want this machine to do, and does it well. This AIO is easy to set up, and the cost of ink is reasonable. The software and the interface are as smooth as you can hope for at this price, and the unit prints and scans quickly enough for most at-home purposes. The build feels pretty sturdy, and the print quality is quite good for the money.

The price of ink remains a major thorn in the side of inkjet owners, but the OfficeJet Pro 8720 has a reasonable cost per page.

First, let’s address one of the biggest pain points of working with modern printers: the installation process. This is one aspect in which the OfficeJet Pro 8720 particularly excels, thanks to its slickly designed Easy Start installer. Step by step, the installer walks you through getting the AIO connected, registered, and working with your computer. Despite some scaling issues on our 4K monitor using the Windows 10 app, we were able to get everything going in less than 15 minutes. It’s smoother than other companies’ installers—especially Brother’s, which feels like it’s straight out of 2002, with an archaic user interface that invites setup blunders.

The price of ink remains a major thorn in the side of inkjet owners, but the OfficeJet Pro 8720 has a reasonable cost per page. Assuming that you buy the XL cartridges (and not accounting for ink that gets wasted during cleaning cycles), a black and white page costs about 1.6¢, while a color page comes to about 8.1¢. That’s more than the per-page costs of some Brother printers (which we don’t recommend because we’ve found their interfaces to be janky and their print quality to be poor), but cheaper than the costs of competing Epson and Canon models. (And at least on paper, it’s also cheaper than the per-page costs of monochrome laser printers, though you may get better value from a laser printer if you tend to let your printer sit between uses—if you allow ink to sit for too long, you’re wasting money.) Another bit of good news: You can replace the cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges separately. The HP Instant Ink program is another ink option worth considering that we’ll cover later in this guide, though it’s best when paired with low-price, expensive-ink printers rather than with midrange models like this one.

The HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 has a responsive 4.3-inch touchscreen—bigger than the screens of other models at this price, with a smoother interface.

Everyday use of the OfficeJet Pro 8720 is smooth. Once we installed the drivers, we did not run into any connectivity problems. If you don’t want to print through your system dialog or scan through third-party software, you can use the HP All-in One Remote app, which we found to be straightforward. You can also use it to monitor ink levels and network settings, as well as to access Google Drive and Dropbox if you’d like to send documents directly to the cloud. It works with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices. As far as out-of-the-box software goes, HP’s looks modern, with an intuitive interface. It’s significantly better than the command-center apps we’ve seen from other companies, which can seem as if they were originally designed for old versions of Windows and barely updated since.

We’ve tested only a few of the current models in this price range, but from experience we’d say that the OfficeJet Pro 8720 prints just as well as other midrange inkjet AIOs we’ve examined over the past few years, producing sharp, dark text down to 4 points, as well as crisp and bright color graphics. We found that compared with the output of expensive color laser options, its small text is just as readable (if not quite as sharp), and its color graphics have punchier colors and a smoother look. Photos are surprisingly vibrant, too, with prints that’ll look good enough to hang on your fridge or keep in a frame on your desk. This model is not the right kind of printer to get if you’re a serious photography hobbyist (we have an affordable photo printer recommendation if that’s what you need), but the results are pretty solid for a jack-of-all-trades machine.

Close-ups of images scanned from (left to right) the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720, Brother MFC-J985DW, and HP Envy 5540. The color rendering and detail are best on the OfficeJet Pro 8720, though the Envy 5540 has the most vibrant results.

The OfficeJet Pro 8720 is also quicker than virtually any other AIO at this price. HP claims print speeds of 24 pages per minute in black and 20 ppm in color; you’re unlikely to get near those figures over Wi-Fi, but you can realistically expect about 13 ppm with single-sided black and white documents, or 6.5 ppm with double-sided color (both over Wi-Fi). We don’t put much stock into print speed figures, because all printers in this class are plenty fast for moderate at-home use. If you want to see more detailed speed comparisons along these lines, we think Computer Shopper, Consumer Reports, PCMag, and Tom’s Guide do fine work. If speed is especially important to you, consider upgrading to a laser all-in-one.

In our tests, this model’s document-scanning speed with the ADF landed right in the middle of the pack for similar AIOs, around 9 sides of a page per minute. We think that rate is quick enough for most home use. The 50-sheet ADF can scan (or copy) both sides of a sheet of paper, which is a handy feature at this price. Photos we scanned via the flatbed looked great, easily matching those of the other printers we tested. Colors were accurate, too, and you can bump the resolution all the way up to 1200 dpi for extra detail.

Paper handling was smooth, with the feeder stumbling only once during our testing when it picked up two sheets at the same time while the tray was nearly empty (we’ve seen this flaw with other printers). Otherwise, the ADF reliably pulls in one sheet at a time, and the rollers in the main tray don’t seem to have any issues when it’s almost empty or slightly overfilled.

The single 250-sheet paper tray is standard for a full-featured all-in-one, and is able to hold most common sizes of media, with adjustable guides that can handle everything from legal paper to envelopes, which is also standard. Unlike some high-end printers, the OfficeJet Pro 8720 has no secondary feeder for odd-size media.

In addition, this model looks nicer than other printers and has some useful design touches. Like higher-end printers, it deposits print and copy jobs behind the 4.3-inch color control panel, rather than spitting them out onto a fold-out arm where they might fall to the floor, as with cheaper printers. The big touch panel is bright and easy to use, with large icons and smartphone-style swipe controls. You can do pretty much everything using just the touchscreen, even scanning documents or photos directly to email, a network drive, or cloud storage services. Other AIOs at this price have laggy or convoluted controls, or won’t let you complete certain tasks other than through a computer.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Introduced in April 2016, the OfficeJet Pro 8720 is still relatively new. Not many customer reviews are available at the moment, and we can’t yet know how it will hold up over time. The previous model (the OfficeJet Pro 8620, released in 2014) seems to be a sturdy machine, judging from our own use and customer reviews. But the OfficeJet Pro 8720’s redesign may leave the door open to new issues; we’ll post an update if we hear anything.

Make no mistake, this is a big printer. At 19.7 by 20.9 by 13.4 inches, it will take up a large chunk of most desks, and the furniture might creak a little under its 33-pound weight. It isn’t nearly as tall or as heavy as the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw, but it is far heftier than most other inkjets at this price. On the plus side, that weight could be a sign of superior build quality; the OfficeJet Pro 8720 feels much more solidly built than the smaller, comparably priced Brother MFC-J985DW.

The Officejet Pro 8720’s 250-sheet paper tray is average for an all-in-one but won’t handle anything larger than legal paper. It also lacks a bypass feed for odd-size media or envelopes. Movable guides mean you can print that stuff through the main tray, but if you need to do so regularly, it’s a bit of a hassle to switch back and forth. If you want to avoid the issue, HP says you can buy a second 250-sheet input drawer that doubles as a bypass tray, though we’ve been unable to actually find this part for sale anywhere, and HP has not been able to show us proof that it’s available. (The OfficeJet Pro 8740 comes standard with that second tray but costs about $100 more.)

The 8720 has a USB port where you can stick a thumb drive so you don’t need to start a print job from a computer or mobile device. But you can use this feature to print only photos, not PDFs or Word files, which is a shame. To get PDF and Word printing capability, you need to step up to the more expensive OfficeJet Pro 8730 or 8740. Alternatively, you can simply print the documents directly from your phone, tablet, or computer.

Now, we’re sure that some 8720 owners will run into other problems that we don’t cover here. Dropped Wi-Fi connections, ink-cartridge drama, poor customer service—these things can happen with any printer. We think they’re less likely with this model, but given our long experience with printers of this design and at this price, we can’t be sure. We’ll continue testing over the long term to see how the OfficeJet Pro 8720 holds up, we’ll monitor user reviews, and we’ll update you if we learn anything new.

This business-class upgrade adds more memory, single-pass duplex scanning, and PDF and Word file printing from a USB stick. Grab it if you need those features, or if the 8720 is out of stock.

In our testing, the OfficeJet Pro 8720 was so far ahead of the pack that we’re not comfortable recommending any competing model as a runner-up pick. Instead, we’re recommending that you pick up the slightly more expensive HP OfficeJet Pro 8730 All-in-One Printer if our main pick is out of stock.

This slightly upgraded model offers single-pass duplex scanning, which speeds up the job significantly by scanning both sides of a sheet simultaneously. If you regularly scan two-sided, multipage documents, this feature is worth the extra cost. The OfficeJet Pro 8730 offers other speed-boosting attributes, as well, like double the onboard memory, built-in fonts, and more advanced administrative tools. It’s a more robust tool for a busier home office. We don’t think most people will need all of that, but the upgrades certainly don’t hurt if the 8720 is unavailable, or if that model’s price jumps for some reason.

Budget pick

If you want a color all-in-one for light household use, the HP Envy 5540 is a suitable machine and a fair deal—if you use it with the HP Instant Ink program.

If you don’t print often but insist on a cheap color printer, the Envy 5540 offers excellent print quality, as well as reasonable ink costs if you use HP’s subscription service.

Once we nailed down our main pick, we looked for something more suited to people who want to print and scan only occasionally. We ditched the ADF and duplex-scanning requirements and focused instead on low prices (including cost per page) and high usability. We worked through a pool of about 30 candidates and discarded those that cost more than $100, those with a high cost per page (such as the Epson WF-2750), and those with consistently troublesome customer reviews (like the Canon MX492).

Cheap inkjet printers are usually a trap because each ink cartridge costs so damn much. But the Instant Ink subscription shifts the cost structure and can save you a ton of money if you mostly print in color.

That led us to two likely candidates: the HP Envy 5540 and the Brother MFC-J480DW. These two models approach the bargain AIO category from very different angles. The Envy 5540 offers fewer features (no ADF, no fax) but produces sharp text and vibrant photos, and it works with a cost-saving ink-subscription program. Brother crams the MFC-J480DW’s spec sheet with many of the same features as our main pick has, for a much lower price. But the interface is miserable, the machine runs slowly, and the print quality is poor particularly on images and photos.

For our money, the simplicity and image quality of the HP Envy 5540 All-in-One Printer make it the better choice for anyone who insists on a color printer and scanner but doesn’t want to pay much. The feature set is solid for the price. The unit prints and scans quickly over Wi-Fi. The color print quality is surprisingly vibrant, even next to that of pricier AIOs we’ve tested. And the machine has a more intuitive interface than printers from other companies.

What we really like about the Envy 5540, though, is that you can opt into HP’s Instant Ink subscription program. The thing is, cheap inkjet printers are usually a trap because each ink cartridge costs so damn much. If you print only occasionally, the head-cleaning cycles the printer needs to run will waste a lot of ink, driving up the cost per page even higher. (And if you print regularly, you owe it to yourself to get a better printer with a lower cost per page, such as our main pick.) But Instant Ink shifts the cost structure and can save you a ton of money if you mostly print in color.

For example, if you buy your own ink cartridges, the Envy 5540 uses about 5.7¢ of ink per monochrome page, or a whopping 17¢ for each color print (and way, way more for photos). With Instant Ink, at the most basic service tier, you pay $3 a month and can print (or copy) up to 50 pages, whether they’re text or flyers or full-size photos. (Scanning is free.) That works out to 6¢ per page if you use your whole allotment. At the top tier, the cost drops to 3.3¢ per page. Unused pages roll over month to month (up to a point), and HP lets you upgrade or downgrade your plan as necessary with no penalty. HP automatically sends you fresh ink cartridges when you’re running low, no extra charge, so you’re unlikely to find yourself in a situation where you need to print something and have no ink left.

This subscription program still has some shortcomings, however. If you print mostly text, it isn’t a great deal; midrange inkjets, and laser printers of all types, have a much lower black and white cost per page. If you don’t use most of your monthly allotment, it’s just an okay deal. You could argue that, emotionally, it’s easier to spend a few dollars at a regular interval even if you don’t get the full cash value than it is to shell out $30 for a new cartridge when you’re not expecting the expense. (The editor of this guide has used Instant Ink with an Envy printer at home for about 18 months, and that has been his experience.) Also, to work with the program, your printer needs to be hooked to the Internet so that HP can monitor your page count and ink levels. If you hate the idea of a corporation keeping an eye on your devices, we don’t blame you. (On the other hand, shouldn’t everyone just assume everything is under surveillance anyway?)

What else should you know about the Envy 5540? Well, it has no automatic document feeder, which is a bummer if you want to make copies or scan multipage documents, so it may not be a great pick for home offices. It also lacks a fax function. If you don’t use Instant Ink, we think this printer (not to mention most other cheap inkjets) is unreasonably expensive to operate. It even uses a combined cyan/magenta/yellow cartridge that requires replacing when just one of the colors runs out, which wastes a ton of expensive ink.

All that said, next to the other cheap color AIOs out there, the Envy 5540 is the best option we could find, as long as you’re willing to sign up for the subscription service.

Upgrade pick

Hate inkjets? The HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw represents the most affordable way to step up to the fast, reliable output of a color laser all-in-one. Photo: Ben Keough

This color laser all-in-one is better for people with high-volume needs, or those who just don’t want to deal with all the frustrations of an inkjet.

For some people, our main pick won’t provide quite enough firepower. Others might not want to deal with the time-sucking cleaning cycles, wasted ink, frequent cartridge swaps, and short lifespans that come with owning an inkjet. With that in mind, we also looked for choices that fill the niche between elite inkjet AIOs and the hulking professional laser printers you’d see at your local cubicle farm. We found them in color laser all-in-ones.

Our pick for a laser all-in-one is the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw. It’s the most affordable color laser machine that offers all the same productivity features as our favorite inkjet model, including fax, duplex printing and scanning, and wireless connectivity. Like most laser printers, it’s very fast—we clocked its print speeds at around 27 pages per minute, even over Wi-Fi. Scanning is speedy, too: It can scan both sides of a page on a single pass, and we timed it at 25 single-sided black and white pages per minute, or 11 double-sided color pages per minute.

We also found that it produces sharper text than inkjets we’ve tested, especially at smaller font sizes. Whereas inkjets can waste time running printhead cleaning cycles before they begin to print, the Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw is up and printing just a couple of seconds after you begin the print job—even if you’ve let it sit for weeks between uses. This is also a notably sturdy machine, as its recommended duty cycle tops out at 4,000 pages per month, double what HP recommends for the OfficeJet Pro 8720. We have no way of knowing how well it will hold up over time, but our best, educated guess is that the M477fdw will last longer than midrange inkjet printers.

On the downside, despite popular myth, color laser toner is not actually cheaper than ink for similarly specced inkjet AIOs. With the M477fdw, you can expect to pay about 2¢ per page for monochrome prints and 12¢ for color prints. (The OfficeJet Pro 8720 cranks out black and white pages at 1.6¢ each and color pages at 8.1¢ each). But the real-world costs might not be so different. Laser printers waste only a tiny amount of toner, whereas inkjets can waste substantial amounts of ink, depending on the number of cleaning cycles they need to run. Think of it this way: With a laser printer, the advertised cost per page is the maximum you’ll pay, but with an inkjet, the stated cost per page is the minimum you’ll pay. We can’t predict your real-world experience.

In addition, laser printers can’t print on photo paper at all, so glossy prints are out of the question. Either pick up a specialty photo printer or settle for an inkjet AIO.

In general, color laser AIOs are quite pricey, and the M477fdw is the best deal we could find that was capable of doing all the same stuff as a $200 inkjet (duplex scanning, duplex printing, ADF, and the like). HP makes plenty of similar LaserJet models (including variants in the 477 series), so if you don’t think you need all the features that this specific model offers, look around—you can expect similar performance elsewhere in the line.

What to look forward to

Care and maintenance

Most printers, including AIO models, require little maintenance if you use them routinely, as the printheads purge ink as necessary. In contrast, if you don’t print often, your printer will run deep-cleaning cycles that waste tons of ink. Avoid long periods without printing, if possible.

Apart from that, you don’t need to do any routine maintenance to clean your printer—on the flip side, however, you can’t do much proactively to keep your printer running well. We have not seen hard data on how long midrange inkjet AIOs can be expected to last. It depends on the build, how often you print, and even your local climate. Good luck!

The competition

It may seem as if we’re huge HP fans, but really, we’ve just tested a lot of disappointing printers over the past few years, and HP happens to be making the least-disappointing all-in-ones right now. If you’ve had a bad experience with an HP printer in the past, know that they’ve improved in ways that other printers have not over the past few years, in terms of setup, troubleshooting, and connectivity, as well as in the cost of ink. Going with an HP model is worth another shot—we don’t think buying a different brand will do much to make you happier.

Note that printer prices can swing wildly, even over just a few days. If you’ve spotted an excellent deal on what looks like a solid printer, but we haven’t covered it here, that’s probably because the price was much, much higher when we wrote this guide. We have no reasonable way to reconsider our picks every time an AIO goes on sale, because that happens a couple of times per week. As for the models we do highlight in this guide, we’re comfortable recommending them even at their maximum street prices. Good deals on other decent printers may pop up along the way, and you can try to use our selection criteria when deciding whether a particular printer is worth picking up.

We looked at several Brother models and tested the Brother MFC-J985DW. We found that although it offers an impressive array of features and notably cheap ink, the user interface is light years behind the competition. From the clunky installation process and software to the cheap, resistive touchscreen that’s straight out of a first-gen smartphone, it’s a slog to use. Installation can be a minefield, too: Setting up the printer through the Windows 10 printer menu, rather than using the installer from Brother’s website, seems to work correctly but results in hellishly slow print times. Brother’s iPrint&Scan mobile app also has difficulty rendering PDFs printed on Android devices, producing garbled output. We’ve tested other Brother inkjet printers over the years and have found similar problems. (The company’s mono laser printers are excellent, however.)

Epson AIOs look like a solid deal on paper, but some of the company’s recent models have had durability problems. The Epson WorkForce WF-3620 was our top recommendation in this guide at one point, but so many Wirecutter readers and Amazon reviewers complained about units broken on arrival that we rescinded our pick.

The Epson WorkForce ET-4500 is the printer that comes closest to our ideal spec profile and uses the company’s EcoTank ink technology—a fine idea, we think. Rather than forcing you to replace small ink cartridges every few hundred pages, the printer comes with enough ink to print thousands of pages from the get-go, stored in line-fed tanks on the side of the machine. This design drives the cost per page way, way down from where it currently is. However, the upfront cost of the printer is significantly higher than that of competing models. With our qualms about the durability of Epson machines, we’re hesitant to recommend that you sink so much money into one.

We checked out Canon’s Maxify all-in-ones, in particular the MB5020, and found a pile of negative reviews from buyers complaining of faulty Wi-Fi, unreliable paper handling, and many machines simply breaking after a few weeks of use. Canon’s ink is more expensive than that of other brands by a notable margin, which is a dealbreaker. The company also has a bad habit of discontinuing firmware updates for its printers after just a couple of years—so if you upgrade your computer’s operating system, it might not work with the printer anymore.

For our budget pick, we looked at some other HP Envy models, including the HP Envy 4520, a very popular model. We prefer some of the extra features on the Envy 5540, but the two models are very similar printers, and we think the Envy 4520 is a reasonable choice if you just want to pick up the cheapest HP Envy printer that’s available when you’re shopping.

The other cheap AIO we closely considered, the Brother MFC-J480DW, is actually quite inexpensive to buy and to run—especially considering that it offers an automatic document feeder and auto-duplex printing. However, like other Brother inkjets, it has a crappy, archaic interface, as well as slow operation and spotty connectivity, and in all of those regards the Envy 5540 is a far more pleasant printer to use.

Ben Keough is a freelance tech writer and editor. A contributor to The Wirecutter, he was previously an editor in chief at Reviewed.com, and he has written for USA Today. He spends most of his time hiking and taking photos of Santa Fe sunsets.

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